Anyone old enough to remember the USSR will recall that its leaders portrayed themselves as “moderates” who were subject to the control of other, unnamed hardliners in the Kremlin. They would take extreme positions and warn that, if those positions were not accepted, the hardliners would intervene and make things even worse for us. It was a tactic that worked every now and then.
Since he succeeded in getting the House to accept his ransom note without a vote to spare, Kevin McCarthy has no wiggle room in any upcoming negotiations. He can thus credibly argue that Biden’s only alternatives are to accept his demands or trigger a default. It is essentially the “hardliners in the Kremlin” argument in a different context.
The bottom line here is as follows:
- McCarthy wants desperately to keep his job;
- Given his tiny majority, he can’t afford to lose any votes, even among the most extreme members of his caucus;
- There is no way he can get a unanimous vote in his caucus for any reasonable agreement with Biden and the Democrats in the Senate; therefore
- Any plausible agreement that can be reached will not directly involve McCarthy. The moderates in both parties will have to work around him.